Wednesday, July 7, 2010

I go back and forth on the "innovation" question as it pertains to IndyCar racing. Yes, innovation was a great selling point for racing for nearly a century. However, as the author of this story in Slate writes, innovation in those days had everything to do with top-end speed.

That is not the case today.

Again, I point you in the direction of the column in Slate in which Edison2 is discussed.

Former racers Ron Mathis, Kevin Doran, and Brad Jaeger (Indy Lights) are managers for this very ambitious company located in Lynchburg, Virginia.

The Edison2 also provides a nice tie-in with IndyCar because it runs on E85 Ethanol. According to the company, the 750-pound Edison2 has demonstrated that it can get 101 mpg. That won't help APEX Brasil and UNICA sell ethanol, but it might just give IndyCar racing something interesting to promote.

Goooooood luck on this one. Time has already past and no one has stepped up and said "we're in". I can't see anyone in the future buying into a engine deal that has already given Honda a effect 2-3 year head start. In this economy, that is a hard nut to cut. Maybe down the road you might see some new faces, but for now....???

RP, thanks for the link...the photos are cool. The front wheel fairings and nose are what I expected to see on the Delta when the cover came off. There are a lot of similar designs in the Shell Eco challenge cars.

I'd love to get excited about this, but I can't. IMHO, the wrong decision won't run off many customers, the "right one" won't attract many, either. You could button up a Briggs and Stratton under that cowling, badge it a Porsche, and folks would cheer...or, not.

Ok Andrew, I read your column. It just makes me want to go out and turbocharge (if thats possible) a Norelco!!! Ford has a business investment into electric. Look at Ford's aquistion of many Lithium mines in Australia & New Zealand. I don't expect this opinion to be anything more than a canned corporate response. Ford is heading in the right direction thanks their new CEO. I don't see Ford investing in dying technologies. The internal combustion engine may be in its final death spin. Ford has no choice but to endorse electric with the sizeable investment made by them.

From Andy’s column:Jamie Allison: "… should the day come where innovative, electrification-based technology is a part of the package, our antennas are up to await those kind of frequencies and we'd be happy to have more conversation around that front.""Otherwise, our plate is very full."

IMHO that is essentially saying, "When hell freezes over."

Before there can be an electric Indy 500, somebody needs to demonstrate an electric power source that can power an Indy style car at 200mph speeds for, say 25 laps or so, and then "refuel" in a reasonable time. That’s not in the foreseeable future for any battery technology that I’m aware of.

Maybe fuel cell technology, but I’m not sure that’s cost effective for the teams. Also, I suspect IMS will have a huge insurance bill when there are 33 high-pressure hydrogen tanks circling the track at 200 mph.

Hybrid technology might be useable for road courses and maybe short ovals, but for Indy they would always be running on the engine. That isn’t much of a change from the current situation except that they would be carrying a lot of unneeded hardware.

Maybe if they cut grooves in the track and lay down some electrified rails….

If you look at the picture of the Tesla motor and transaxle, things get a litle less abstract. Dave, I obviously have no answers to your questions but you may have missed some of the info in the article and footnotes.

Hydrogen fuel cell is a non-starter technology for mass production, hence for racing. Fuggedaboutit. And I was thniking about a 1200 lb. race car, not a Delta concept vehicle.

But I'm diggin' the slot car memories, that's for sure. My Pop used to yell at me for all the static on the TV when he was watching Ed Sullivan.

I’m not sure if you are suggesting that IMS could host a short race that serves as a technology demonstration, or if you mean that current electric technology would have trouble completing more than four laps at speed. Either way, I think you’re right.

I certainly think a technology demonstration race would be a good way for the IMS to evaluate emerging auto industry technology, without screwing up the 500. If a major sponsor like Ford were to put up a prize (since they have expressed interest in “electrification-based technology”) there would most likely be some entrants. If it were held as part of Carb Day you would even have people who would watch. I would.

I don’t doubt that an electric Indycar capable of 200mph speeds could be built, perhaps even from a reconfigured Tesla. The problem is carrying enough electric power to make it go very far at that speed. The Tesla may go 245 miles on a charge at, say 50 mph. (Their website doesn’t say at what speed they get the 245 mile range, so I’m guessing.) But the power required to go 200mph is on the order or 64 times greater than what’s required at 50mph. (Power = force x velocity. Force, i.e. aero drag, is 16 times greater and velocity is 4 times greater. Obviously, there are other forces present but drag is the biggest factor at race speed, so I think we’re in the right ballpark.) Based on this rough estimate, the Tesla’s 245-mile range at 50mph goes down to 4 miles at 200mph. Significant progress in battery technology needs to happen before it's feasible for a 500-mile race.

The thought of Roger and Chip in the pit boxes with hand-controllers certainly made me smile…

How about stringing catenary work overhead with trolley poles hung on the back of the car. "The Indianapolis 500 presented by A.O. Smith."

And this, over the newswire this morning:

" (Toyota) will take delivery of two rechargeable prototypes from Tesla Motors Inc. this month. Both are Toyota models fitted with Tesla battery packs and motors. The Japanese automaker said in May it would invest $50 million in Palo Alto, California-based Tesla, maker of the $109,000 Roadster electric sports car.

Tesla vehicles are powered by thousands of the small lithium-ion batteries used in laptop computers. Toyota wants to study that approach to see if it offers advantages over using larger types of battery cells."

Thaks John, I was guessing 700. And that car has an aluminum tub and heavy bodywork, not CF.

You find some interesting things, like Rocket did, when you start looking around. First time for me on this subject, and a look on Youtube at "Electric car racing series" is fun.

The lithium-ion Tessla technology is 10 years old. It doesn't read like they have begun using supercapacitors: Pugeot is into that now.

So the rough idea is 500 lbs of lith-ion cells, 300 of which are in a quick-change pack that drops out the bottom of the fuel cell compartment on a roller jack.

Two banks of supercaps for accelerating to terminal velocity, and quick-charged during pitstops. No worry about recapturing energy from deceleration, this is a Speedway car. If solar panels are really worth a crap, they go on top of the sidepods to recharge the supercaps too.

That very rough sketch gets you an overweight SuoerVee. It's a starting point, and at least the weight is all close to the vehicle cG the way I have it sketched out.

Next question is RT-5 drag horsepower loss a about 170, the Tesla big boy motor is 288 HP. There are bigger ones, but that leads back to the other question...

How long the 300 lbs of lith-ion can make full power wattage. Lots to learn. Guys have been down this road, but it's hard to find successful examples and they used older technology.

The S2000 car at Pikes Peak from 2002 one cool result. They used a Lith-ion pack like the Tesla ESS: and theirs did not need a cooling system.

Andrew: John's numbers are close. A full RT-5 w/ a Bertil's in it weighed at 900-1050 pounds. Atlantics weighed by rule 930lbs for a non Cosworth powered car and 1000 with a BDA. Check SCCA online for specs to Formula Continetal. As for electric, anything is possible, but again.....how much to play? New technology can cost a barnful of $$$$$. With sponsor dropping out like flys now, bringing this into play seems to be a bit.......risky?

I don't think it would adversely effect lateral weight transfer, (track width and CG height being the major factors), if that's what you're referring to. Obviously, the polar moment around the roll axis increases with the batteries spread out, but the cars we're talking about don't roll that much, their CG is pretty low and they don't have that much suspension travel anyway. I think keeping the CG as low as possible is job one and if that means keeping the battery weight low and wide instead of high and narrow I'd choose the former.

Big difference with 3-4g's on the Speedway. Unless you want to use some battery weight for left side weight bias, that is.

The car would have to rely on sidepod tunnels to make downforce and keep the drag low. All the additional vertical load from the battery weight during cornering would try to pull the sidepod off the tub.

Wrench, as for the cost, think about it this way. The Tesla is a $109K Lotus chassis.

$20K is for the 990 lb battery pack with cooling system, which is too big and the cooling is probably only needed for traffic/ low speed operation.

Hi Guys: Just had a wild thought. Would not the DeltaWing be a good chassis for this technology? It already has most of its weight/mass low and to the rear. Plenty of area (maybe) for the battery pack in the delta portion of the car. Cooling could be accomplished with the air box and/or MACA ducts on the side pods? You could still keep the differential package they propose by running the electric motor through the diff either through a ring/pinion or transversely. Just a thought.

Has anyone considered the down side effect? What happens when the "Texas Flash" sends one of these electron marvels into the wall coming out of turn four? Do we "light up the sky" with electricity or set this thing on "eleven" and fry the guy inside? The power has got to go somewhere people! Any thoughts?

The "future" is with formula cars, driven by nobody foreign drivers, on street courses, with no sponsors, no new teams and no American interest. We'll thumb our noses at other series and oval racing in general and have penis envy of NASCAR. And then wonder why the hell fewer and fewer people watch or care each year.

Ohh, that's right. That's Indy Cars now.

BTW, the blowhard road racing dorks at TrackForum who think that USAC is "irrelevent" and that their precious formula cars are so damn skippy and that nobody in USAC belong in Indy Cars, can kiss my American ass. You guys suck, your beliefs suck and your series sucks. Once we get rid of you and bring the American open wheel race fan (which outnumbers the American road racing fan by about 1000 to 1) BACK WHERE THEY BELONG then maybe the sport will be relevent again.

These "fans" need to go the way of Can Am, Indy Lights 1, Formula Atlantics, CART, Champ Car and the IRL and disappear into thin air.

Ooh, that's a kinda nice rant, TD. Midgets n Sprints n short ovals are the places where American racers develop real grassroots followings, NOT in formula series. Those are the folks I'D want racing in my for-profit Indianapolis 500, all else equal.

But I just stopped over here because tomorrow is apparently THE day everyone's been waiting for (whether it turns out to be a watershed moment or not), and the language at Indycar.com is...how shall we say...somewhat inviting:

They phrase it like that in the lead-up, there's no way they come out and say "we pick chassis x, done". Although that would be a GREAT way to deliver a nice in-your-face-hahaha to the remaining fans...

Haha John...of course, if it looks like a Nike putter and the announcers call it a Nike putter and casual fans think it's a Nike putter, is Nike really going to be concerned that it's not REALLY a Nike putter?

Dallara published a rendering of the IndyIdea I have been working on for quite a while now. Apologies if the text is repetitious for readers here, it's something of a summary and conclusion that has been tidied up quite nicely by recent events.

Outstanding work Andrew!!! Your article is preety much everything we discussed here at "The Indy Idea". We get it, Penske gets it, as do some racers. You and I know that a certain chassis would be a welcome addition to the ranks under what should have been proposed. Now we are just stuck with another version of the "same old thing". More re-runs!!

GM: I hope forward.....Indy Cars don't have reverse....but thats up for consideration. Andrew's article really does cover what we all know. I feel better knowing my thoughts are in line with Mr Penske. Business is business, and he knows better than most on the "art" of business. So for us to have a informed discussion on this site, tells me I am with some very good company here. I applaud everyone for their thoughts and opinions. We at least know, we are informed and understand the situation.

I hate to say...after the Toronto race, I think my interest in this has gotten up and went. The usual suspects took five of top six, only because there were no more. The whole while I watched I asked myself why...well, only because it was too damn hot outside and my baseball team was already getting blown out on the MLB channel. Otherwise, I really don't know why anymore.